MindHandle is thrilled to announce a new addition to our team: Bren Montgomery, Chief Technology Officer. Bren is a tech industry hotshot with a reputation for website wizardry. Under her leadership, MindHandle is expanding our branding and advertising services to include the complex undertaking of building scalable, reliable, and engaging websites.
Bren has been making waves in technology since 1998, when the internet was a baby and most people only used their AOL account to check their Yahoo horoscope and watch The Hampster Dance. She blazed trails in the finance and oil and gas industries, helping megalithic corporations strategically navigate risks. (And in those industries, risks are pretty high— i.e. billions of dollars literally exploding.)
Sure, Bren’s hella impressive resume was part of what pulled us to her… but if you’re fortunate enough to meet Bren, you can’t help but get drawn into her magnetic backstory. Lucky for you, we’ve captured it here, in her very own words.
Bren, how did you wind up in technology?
I steered my career towards technology for a very personal reason. My daughter, Morgan, was born in 1998, when the internet was also an infant. She was born with CHARGE Syndrome and was scheduled for her first surgery within a couple of days.
Early on in her diagnosis, I did not know what to do and where to go. Miraculously, we found the information I needed by researching on the web (which wasn't very much back then). We found an amazing doctor by the name of Cheryl Anderson from Children's Hospital in Dallas. She had developed new cutting-edge technology to help individuals with cranial facial deformities, including babies born with CHARGE syndrome. That technology reduced the number of surgeries in the first several years of Morgan’s life from several to just two and the results were spectacular.
I knew then that I wanted to work in an industry that changed people's lives for the better. Supplying the right information, at the right time and in the right way can change the path of our lives. I've been blessed to find key information on the web that has provided Morgan a better life through the years.
When did strategy come into the picture?
While working in finance, understanding how the bottom line is affected by so many variables and outliers fascinated me. I've been lucky enough to have amazing mentors along the way that taught me from real-world experience.
The first CFO I worked for was Roger Harmon at Goex International, an explosives company in the oil and gas industry. He taught me the value of knowing where you want to go and planning the strategy of how to get there with the end in mind first. I've applied that methodology to so many things in life, including strategy planning and communication.
Because I worked with explosives for so long, I naturally approach projects considering risks first. What are all the bad things that could happen? If you understand the things that could happen, and you've planned for them...it's easier to know and ask the most important questions. Identifying those question and knowing how to plan for the best outcome for them will always give you a greater chance of success.
How do you minimize risk when building a brand website?
MindHandle has a three-step process for brands to launch a top-quality website with minimal pain – all by mitigating risk. I’ve seen far too many clients over the years that needed to replace their website shortly after it launched due to communication or execution issues that could have been prevented with this strategy.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to post three blogs to The Charge explaining each step of the risk mitigation process. You’ll first learn how to create a “Book of Wishes” to align expectations. Then, I’ll clue you in on how to conduct a “Risk Assessment” to spot problems before they can cause damage. Lastly, I’ll cover “Requirements” – identifying what’s necessary for a successful launch.
These methods will prevent you from losing sleep during project designs and development. The process is designed to help get your creative juices flowing about what can go wrong and what the consequences could be. Your website or business application is an investment. You want the product to be as scalable, reliable, and dependable as possible while fulfilling your business objective.
Thank you, Bren! We are thrilled to have you on the team at MindHandle and we look forward to your blog series, How to Mitigate Risk When Building Brand Websites.
